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It speaks volumes about glamour that the first car to ever leave a tire print in the cement outside Hollywood's Chinese Theater is the 2015 Ford Mustang. Few cars are as iconic or enduring. Indeed, the Mustang is one of the only vehicles to remain in continuous production for half a century.

As Ford prepares to ring in the golden anniversary of its groundbreaking pony car, it literally rolled out the red carpet Thursday with simultaneous events in L.A., New York, Shanghai, Barcelona, Sydney and seven other cities globally to flaunt the sixth-generation redesign of its most highly anticipated car in years.

Available in the fall of 2014 as a 2015 model, the new Mustang simultaneously pays tribute to its storied past and pushes its design deeper into the 21st century, with a more aggressive, performance-oriented body style and innovative powertrains to match. The 2015 Mustang can be had as a 3.6-liter V-6, a 5.0-liter V-8 that is expected to make more than 420 horsepower, or with an all-new, direct-injected, 2.3-liter, inline-four-cylinder EcoBoost engine that is expected to exceed 305 horsepower and marks Ford's first use of a twin-scroll turbocharger. The six-speed transmission is available as both a manual and Select-Shift automatic with paddle shifters.

“We're trying to bring along our current customer as well as attract a new customer,” said Mustang marketing manager Melanie Banker. More than a third of Mustang buyers are age 55 or older – a percentage that is not only higher than Mustang rivals the Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro, but is also growing. Mustang owners age 55-plus increased 12 percentage points in the past five years, according to the car-buying site
Edmunds.com, while buyers age 35 and under dropped 3 points.

To lure a younger audience,
“we've got a lot of new technology,” Banker said, citing a new selectable drive mode system that lets drivers change the car's suspension and steering effort with the touch of a button. Underscoring the rear-wheel-drive Mustang's performance mission is the switch to an all-independent suspension tuned to reduce squat, lift and dive at each axle and keep the chassis poised when drivers accelerate or brake abruptly.

The Mustang's body is constructed from unitized, welded steel; its hood and front fenders from aluminum. Ford has not released the car's overall weight, but its wheelbase is 107.1 inches. Its overall length: 188.3 inches.

Available as both a fastback and a convertible, the 2015 model will also be the first Mustang to include the MyFord Touch in-car communication and entertainment system that pairs drivers' mobile devices with their cars, as well as the Sync system that enables voice commands to make hands-free phone calls and control the car's audio and other functions.

“There was consensus with the Mustang team even from an engineering perspective: Make it modern but at the same time retain the feel of Mustang,” said Moray Callum, executive design director at Ford Motor Co.

For its re-do, the Mustang is lower and wider, with a slight flare to its side skirts and more chiseled features throughout. Still, it is unmistakably Mustang, with its fastback profile and bulging hood.

Seventeen-inch aluminum wheels are standard on the V-6 and EcoBoost versions; 18-inch wheels are standard on the V-8 and optional for the less powerful models; 19- and 20-inch wheels are also optional on the EcoBoost and V-8.

Beau Boeckmann, chief designer for Galpin Auto Sports in Van Nuys, was part of a small, 12-dealer council that saw different iterations of the new Mustang throughout its four-year-long design process.

“In my lifetime, I have never known of a vehicle that has been more highly anticipated,” said Boeckmann, whose dealership is the No. 1 volume Mustang dealer in the world. Boeckmann said the 2015 Mustang is “the most asked-about car than any other, by a lot.”

The buzz, he said, began building about a year ago and started to reach a fever pitch six months ago.

“Mustang is a brand with appeal no matter what age you are. Everybody loves a Mustang. It's one of those cars that almost everybody's got a story about something they did in a Mustang or shouldn't have done in a Mustang. We can all relate to it in some way."

After the Ford Mustang made its debut as the pace car for the 1964 Indianapolis 500, it was quickly adopted by the drag- and road-racing communities, where, one year later, it began to rack up wins in the National Hot Rod Assn. Winternationals and Sports Car Club of America's national championship.

Its cultural impact was even more resonant. More than 500 movies and television programs have featured the Mustang, according to Ford estimates, from the Steve McQueen classic “Bullitt,” and the James Bond film “Goldfinger,” to more recent movies, such as “American Gangster” and next year's “Need for Speed,” timed to coincide with the Mustang's 50th anniversary.

Ford hasn't released many details of its party plans except to say that it will throw a celebration on the car's exact 50th anniversary – April 17, 2014 – in Las Vegas. One month later, the Petersen Automotive Museum in L.A. will celebrate the car with a week of activities, similar to its celebration of the newly re-envisioned Chevrolet Corvette Stingray earlier this year.

Banker declined to provide further details about special 50th anniversary colors or badging that might be made available for the car that, in April, turned out its one-millionth model. Ford has yet to announce pricing or when dealers will be able to begin taking pre-orders.

“ ‘Mustang' is the most iconic name in the Ford family,” according to Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst at
Edmunds.com, where Mustang has accounted for 20 percent of the site's traffic for the entry sport-car segment in the past year. “It may not contribute the most toward Ford's profits, but the new model creates a buzz that will resonate across the entire brand.”

As for Ford's executive design director, the test of the car's redesign will come once the car goes on sale.

“That's the true measure of how good a job we've done,” Callum said. “The truth is in whether people want to buy it or not.”

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